Originally Posted by Yeesh
To reiterate, if I want to take an awesome sword from a Baddy and my hit rate is 60%, I keep swinging and eventually I get the sword. If I want to talk a Baddy out of his awesome cookie, I get one or two chance(s) to fire off my nifty dialogue skill(s), and that's it, I rolled the d100 and there's nothing more I can do. And if that's not it, then did the skills have any meaning after all?

Social isn't fighting. You only get so many tries to make a good impression. But with a sword you can hack, hack, hack away until you're dead or the other guy is.
In real life, there are people you will get along with and people you will not get along with. How do you transfer this into a game other than through skill checks or dialogue choices?

Plus it depends on how many monsters have "nifty cookies". Your skills will have meaning if you have more chances to use them or they can change the overall path of the game, like Witcher. Even though there was no skill check, through your dialogue choices you did have a huge effect on the game. I happen to like the skill checks, until they come up with something better I think it's the best way to roleplay. I sure as hell am not going to use my REAL charisma when roleplaying. I would never talk anyone out of anything!!!